The impact of household air pollution on women’s health

• Thirty-six percent of the city’s population lives in slums, where biomass burning—a major cause of household air pollution in the country—is an important concern. 
• Warrior Moms and Centre for Sustainable Development conducted a survey of 1,500 households in 12 slums of urban Nagpur to understand access to and use of different fuels and their associated health impacts, especially on women and children who are exposed to chulhas (earthen or brick stoves) used for cooking and heating in homes.
• According to a survey conducted in Nagpur City, 43 percent women in Nagpur slums still cook using solid fuels such as wood, crop wastes, charcoal, coal, dung, and kerosene in chulhas, despite having access to liquified petroleum gas (LPG) connections.
• Findings of the survey has established that women and children are disproportionately affected by household air pollution caused by burning biomass.
• The skyrocketing prices of LPG cylinders mean that making a complete switch to clean fuels is a distant dream for poor households.
• Women and young girls spend a lot of time collecting firewood, putting themselves at grave risk while doing so as they often collect biomass from unsafe spaces such as dumping grounds. Young girls also face a large opportunity cost as they often have to prioritise collecting biomass over more productive activities such as studying. 
• Burning solid fuels results in household air pollution that makes up 30–50 percent of the ambient air quality across India and kills approximately 6 lakh Indians prematurely every year, by far the most for a country, according to the Global Burden of Disease Study, 2019.
• Further, children also face the harmful effects of biomass burning due to their close proximity to the chulha while their mothers are cooking or heating water. Their lungs are exposed to the toxic fumes coming out of the chulhas, making them vulnerable to respiratory issues, breathlessness, and incessant coughing

Govt. Policy in This regard:

• The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY), a flagship central government scheme launched in 2016 to expand the network of LPG connections and make India smoke-free, has considerably improved LPG coverage in the country. Over nine crore connections have been distributed until January 2022. Unfortunately, while the overall coverage of LPG increased under PMUY, over 40 percent households in India still do not have access to clean cooking fuel as they cannot afford the cost of refilling their cylinders despite having an LPG connection under the scheme.